Thursday, 14 February 2013

The Glue That Holds The World Together

It’s
a hell of a valentine’s day. Normally I don’t care for the naysayers that decry
some measure of expense when really there no need for any at all (other than a
bottle or two of wine and the ingredients for a meal when after all you have to
eat anyway). But not only is it valentine’s day, but this is the first such day
in thirty years I’ve actually been single! Golly, I was fourteen when last that
was the case on this particular day and here I am with Gimme Shelter playing -
and as it happens twice the normal cards since each of my daughters made one
for me.

Music don’t fail me now!

It’s a quote from Empire Records
that music is the glue that holds the world together, and I understand what is
meant there. What else is it that has such a history of showing that we are
more than mere beasts? Music is important, and I have so very little of it. I
just didn’t have the cash for records when records were what there was, not to
the extent that I’d would have liked to. I never really got on with CDs either,
crappy little boxes without the love of the LP. I’ve got mates that have big
record collections. I’ve got one that owns all the records, all of them, and
yet will always have all the others still to find. I miss gigs, and saying this
I’m not a proper music fan, not really. Not enough. I’m not sure I really
managed to look out the window much since we stopped having lots of tapes. I
liked tapes. They were killing music you know, so it’s probably my own fault.

Yet I was lucky in music, because I
was born at exactly the right time.

Seriously.

You probably weren’t; sorry about
that.

I did not know this when I was a
teenager, because when I was a teenager music was shit. That’s a technical
phrase, use it and you’ll look like you know of what you speak. My teens were
almost exactly, precisely, the 80s. And though I’ve met people of my generation
who look back on the music of the 80s with fond memories they are, and still
are, wrong. I spent my teens as far as music was concerned in the 70s, and some
of the 60s. Inevitably first with rock, some prog, and then into punk. It was
all over before I even got to listen to it. I’m still astonished that my
parents who were young enough to have been to go and see Led Zep without
looking too silly never did.

And why is this? How can I make such
a claim?

Because right in the early 90s I was
in my early twenties.Right when I was
young, and slim, and roguishly good looking music got fucking good. That’s also
a technical phrase. Stop me if I’m getting a bit complex. Bands that came up
through the 80s such as Chumbas, NMA, and the Poppies eased into everything
else that happened. All at the same time there was the crusty boom with the
likes of the Levellers. RDF would play the local pubs. Poppies toured a lot,
there was Senser and Back To The Planet playing in any park that stood still
long enough. And I’m not just talking about the scruffy scene. There were the
Stone Roses. the Charlatans, the Happy Mondays. There was grunge, with Pearl
Jam and Faith No More. Even pop music was good, pop music was Republika,
Elastica, Blur and Oasis, the KLF. These and so many more, an embarrassment of
riches after years of it looking like the guitar had been replaced for ever by
the synth. There were festivals, all the time. There was acid house and the
rave culture and for a time everyone, but everyone had an in somewhere, and
that somewhere once you werethere , whichever way you looked, the music was
just fine thank you. And your early twenties is the best age to love it all.
Not just that bit too old to really think yourself a bit silly, nor too young
to worry and not be confident enough to get out there and drown in it.

There was also Pulp, and there was
also Suede. And Suede I didn’t like. Everyone else was bouncy and energised
whilst Suede dribbled on for those that surrounded by all the good things in
life wanted to wallow in their own remorseless belly buttons. Pulp were just
clever, and we all one day sort of confessed we liked Pulp daring others to say
otherwise, only to find that everyone sort of sneakily did too.

But what you probably don’t want to
do, if say you’re at a friend’s exhibition around that time and have made a
firm attack on all the free beer, is to wander up to Brett Anderson of Suede
and tell him exactly why he is just plain letting the side down compared to
everyone else. Or you can, but probably not like me then realise about an hour
later that the person you had buttonholed was actually Jarvis Cocker.

Yeah, don’t do that.

If you do that it all gets taken
away from you. You get boy bands instead.

About Me

I write because as a fine author recently said, we have to. I write for work, each day - when I put in as best I can a working day for a narrative PBeM. That's been me for nearly fifteen years. I write an hour on other stuff for myself and typically just playing around - but like drawing, it relaxes me. And all this nowadays in bits, spits and biscuit crumbs what with the shining light of my better-half working and I then with the children around that. And I'm the better for it, even if work to be fair suffers a little for my refreshed sanity.
Now I also Blog because I've been told time and again that one needs a web presence, and I do this when the kids are down for the night and I in the next room wait to make sure.
And we love you.